Notes · Book A8The Story of Zal and Rudabeh

A8.1Zal Visits Mehrab of Kabul

Zal tours his lands and reaches Kabul, whose king Mehrab, a descendant of Zahhak and a tributary of Sahm, greets him with rich gifts. Zal hears of Mehrab’s daughter and falls in love unseen, but refuses to visit an idol-worshipper’s house.

From Zahhak’s Tazi stock his lineage came: Tāzi is the Persian word for ‘Arab’, most likely taken from the name of the Arab tribe of Tayy. It also names the swift Arabian horse, and the grayhound. Mehrab’s descent from the tyrant of A5 is the thorn in this whole love story: Sahm’s son is falling in love with the Dragon’s line.

Then to the idol-worshippers we go: For Ferdowsi’s audience, Kabul and idol-worship went together. Until the late ninth century the Kabul valley was ruled by the Hindu Shahi kings, and Sultan Mahmud (A0.12) was still at war with the same dynasty, by then driven further east, while the poem was being finished. Mehrab is Arab by blood and idolater by creed, a mixture that is anachronistic but vivid.

Two musk-black kamands deck her shoulders white: This is the poem’s first full head-to-foot portrait of a woman. Cypress stature, narcissus eyes, bow-shaped brows and musk-black curls are the stock vocabulary of Persian love poetry. The tresses compared to a kamand are more than decoration: in A8.5 Rudabeh will offer her hair to Zal as a climbing rope.

A8.2Rudabeh and Her Handmaidens

Mehrab praises Zal to his wife Sindokht, and Rudabeh, listening, falls in love. She confides in her five Turkish handmaidens, who scold her for loving a white-haired outcast reared by a bird, then, seeing her resolve, swear to bring him to her.

Rudabeh had five Turk maidens at her side: Turkish slaves, men and women, were prized in Ferdowsi’s own day as soldiers, servants and companions. The Ghaznavid dynasty itself was founded by a Turkish slave commander, Sebuktigin (A0.12). In later Persian poetry ‘Turk’ came to mean simply a beautiful, cruel beloved, as in Hafez’s famous ‘Turk of Shiraz’.

To Ghanooj, Mai, and lands beneath each star: Ghanooj is Kanauj on the Ganges, for centuries the capital of great north Indian kingdoms. Mahmud of Ghazni sacked it in 1018, so the name carried a fresh ring of fabulous wealth for the poem’s first readers.

No Caesar, nor Chin’s Faghfoor, nor a lord: Qeysar (Caesar) is the Persian title for the Roman or Byzantine emperor, and Faghfur is the title of the emperor of Chin. Faghfur goes back, through Sogdian, to a phrase meaning ‘son of God’, itself a translation of the Chinese imperial title ‘Son of Heaven’. Rudabeh is turning down the two greatest thrones on earth.

A8.3The Handmaidens Visit Zal

The handmaidens gather roses by the river opposite Zal’s camp. Zal shoots a water-bird, and his page, crossing to fetch it, learns their errand. Zal sends them gifts, questions them about Rudabeh, and they plan his secret visit to her palace.

The month was Farvardin, the year’s first breath: Farvardin, the first month of the Persian year, begins at Nowruz (see A1.1 and A4.1). Its name comes from the fravashis, the guardian spirits of the righteous dead, who in Zoroastrian belief return to their homes at the turn of the year. It is a fitting season for a love story to begin.

They call him Dastan; none can match his name: On the name, see A7.3. The page uses it with the pride of a household servant.

Canopus crowns the cypress in her height: Canopus (Soheyl), the second-brightest star in the sky, hangs low on the southern horizon as seen from Iran. Persian poets called it ‘the Soheyl of Yemen’, and folklore credited its rising with ripening fruit and coloring leather. Here it is a jewel above a cypress: a star at the top of a tall, slender girl.

A8.4The Handmaidens Return

The palace porter scolds the maidens for roaming while Zal is camped nearby. They bring Rudabeh his gifts and praise his beauty; she teases them for changing their tune, sends word that she awaits him, and has a pavilion lavishly prepared.

On arghavan-red bloom beneath their veil: Arghavān is the Judas tree, whose magenta blossom covers the bare branches in early spring. It gives Persian poetry its standard color for a flushed cheek, and the word also serves as the name of the color itself. Zal’s silver curls against a rosy face make a picture the poets never tired of.

But yesterday you judged him otherwise: Rudabeh’s teasing is a light moment in a story about to turn dangerous. In A8.2 the maidens called Zal an old man reared by a bird; now they rave about him. Ferdowsi lets the princess, not the narrator, point out the joke.

A8.5Zal and Rudabeh: A Secret Visit

At dusk Rudabeh appears on the palace roof and lets down her hair for Zal to climb. He kisses it but will not hurt her, and climbs by his own kamand. They feast, embrace and swear to marry, and part in tears at dawn.

Coil upon coil, snake upon snake, it wound: The most famous image of the romance, and a favorite of Shahnameh painters. European readers think at once of Rapunzel, whose hair is also a ladder; Zal’s refusal to climb it is Ferdowsi’s own grace note. The ‘snakes’ are a stock image for curls, but in a descendant of Zahhak they may carry a faint, uneasy echo.

O lord of light, why will you not delay: The lovers’ plea that dawn should wait is the Persian cousin of the European dawn-song, the aubade of the troubadours, and of Juliet’s insistence that the lark is the nightingale. The morning drums that part Zal and Rudabeh are the drums of the royal camp, sounding the day’s first watch.

A8.6Zal Seeks Counsel

Next morning Zal assembles his Mobadan and chiefs, praises God who made all things in pairs, and confesses his love for Mehrab’s daughter. They fall silent, fearing Mehrab’s descent from Zahhak, then advise him to write to Sahm, who can put the case to Manuchehr.

The wise Dastur came, with Mobadan acclaim: A dastur is a minister or counselor; the word also means ‘rule’ or ‘order’, and in modern Persian ‘grammar’. Among Zoroastrians, especially the Parsis of India, dastur is still the title of a senior priest.

He made increase through pairs by wise decree: Zal argues from the order of creation. The idea that God made everything in pairs is in the Qur’an (‘of every thing We have created pairs’), and Zoroastrian teaching treated marriage and children as religious duties. So Zal’s speech could satisfy a Muslim listener and an ancient Mobad alike.

A8.7Zal Writes to His Father

Zal writes to Sahm, recalling his abandonment and his rearing by the Simorgh, confessing his love and reminding him of his vow to refuse him nothing. Sahm, campaigning among the Gorgasaran, reads it in dismay, fearing what a bird-reared son and a Div-descended bride might produce.

When near the lands where Gorgasaran stayed: The name appears to mean ‘vulture-heads’ (kargas, ‘vulture’, and sar, ‘head’). With the Sagzars (A8.8) they belong to the half-monstrous peoples on the edges of the Shahnameh’s world, a Persian counterpart to the dog-headed and one-eyed races of Greek travelers’ tales.

From Mount Alborz before assembled men: Zal holds his father to the promise made when Sahm fetched him from the Simorgh’s nest (A7.3). On Alborz, see A7.2.

A8.8Sahm Seeks Counsel

Sahm’s astrologers read the stars and foretell that the union will produce a world-conquering hero. Relieved, Sahm sends word that he will plead Zal’s case with the Shah and sets out for Iran with Gorgasaran captives, and the messenger brings Zal the good news.

A raging elephant before men’s eyes: Rostam is announced before his parents are even betrothed. The prophecy sketches the whole of his career in a few lines: the gorz, the war on Mazandaran and its Divs, the long enmity with Turan. Ferdowsi likes to tell his audience the end in advance and let them watch it come.

No Sagzar nor Mazandaran shall remain: The Sagzars are usually taken to be the sagsār, ‘dog-heads’, of Persian legend, cousins of the Cynocephali of Greek and medieval lore. Mazandaran, the land of the Divs, is where Rostam will win his greatest early fame, later in this volume.

A8.9Rudabeh’s Mother Is Not Pleased

Zal sends a go-between to Rudabeh with Sahm’s reply, and Rudabeh sends back gifts. Sindokht catches the woman, finds the gifts and beats her. Rudabeh confesses her love; Sindokht thinks Zal worthy but fears the Shah’s anger, and is left in despair.

A honey-tongued woman served as go-between: The woman pedlar who could enter the women’s quarters with jewelery and cloth, and so carry messages, is a stock figure of Persian and Arabic storytelling. Her cover story here, that she is only selling finery, is exactly what her trade allowed her.

He came; we saw each other, nothing more: Rudabeh’s account to her mother is a good deal more modest than the night described in A8.5, with its wine, kisses and embraces. Ferdowsi does not comment. He lets the reader enjoy the daughter’s tact.

A8.10Mehrab Is Not Pleased

Sindokht breaks the news to Mehrab through a parable of a tree whose fruit turns to poison. Mehrab draws his sword to kill Rudabeh, but Sindokht tells him Sahm already knows and makes him swear to spare her. Rudabeh is brought before him, cursed but unharmed.

We rear a tree whose theriac turns to bane: Theriac, the celebrated cure-all of Greek medicine, was a compound of dozens of ingredients, opium prominent among them. In Persian the word became taryāk, and in modern usage taryāk simply means opium. Sindokht’s tree, whose antidote becomes poison, is a small allegory of a child who brings ruin on her house.

Fereydoon’s crown was joined to Yemen’s line: Sindokht has a precedent to hand. Fereydoon married his three sons to the daughters of Sarv, king of Yemen (A6.2–A6.5), and Yemen’s royal house was Arab, like Mehrab’s. If the greatest of kings could take Arab brides, Sahm’s son can too.

A8.11Manuchehr Hears of Zal and Rudabeh

Manuchehr learns of the match and fears that a child of Zahhak’s line may one day threaten the throne. He sends his son Nohzar to summon Sahm, who feasts the prince and rides for court, where the Shah’s army turns out to greet him.

He stands between two worlds and bears two claims: Manuchehr’s fear is only half right. The grandson of Mehrab will be the throne’s great defender for centuries of the poem’s time, but his pride and power will make kings uneasy, and later in the poem he will defy them (II, C8.9).

From Sari and from Amol rose a sound: Sari and Amol are real towns on the Caspian plain, in what is now the province of Mazandaran. That is confusing, because the Shahnameh’s Mazandaran is a land of Divs that the Iranians must invade. Many scholars think the poem’s Mazandaran originally lay elsewhere and that the Caspian province got the name later.

A8.12Sahm Comes to Manuchehr

Sahm tells Manuchehr of his victory over the Gorgasaran and their giant chief Kakouy. The Shah feasts him, but when Sahm tries to raise Zal’s suit, Manuchehr orders him to burn Kabul and root out Mehrab’s line. Sahm dares not protest.

Through Salm he sprang; through Zahhak came his dam: This Kakouy unites the poem’s two villainous lines: Salm, who murdered his brother Iraj, and Zahhak. He is not the Kakouy, grandson of Zahhak, whom Manuchehr killed in A6.24, but the name clearly runs in the enemy’s family.

I gripped his girdle, wrenched him from his place: Seizing an enemy by the belt and lifting him from the saddle is the Shahnameh’s signature feat of strength. Manuchehr did it to the first Kakouy (A6.24), Zal will do it at court (A8.20), and later in this volume Rostam will try it on Afrasiab, with a famous result.

A8.13Sahm Marches on Kabul

Kabul despairs at the Shah’s sentence. Zal rides to meet his father and, before the army, reproaches him for abandoning him at birth and now threatening the house he loves. Sahm admits his wrongs and promises to write to the Shah and send Zal to plead in person.

‘Why has He made one black, another white?’: Zal throws his father’s old fault back at him. Sahm cast out his white-haired baby as the spawn of Divs (A7.2), and Zal’s point is theological: to reject a child for the color God gave him was to quarrel with the Creator.

Saw me in two across the waist instead: Zal offers himself to the death of Jamshid (A4.4), the most terrible death the poem has yet described. The hyperbole is deliberate: he would rather die like the fallen king than see Kabul burned.

A8.14Zal Going as an Envoy before Manuchehr

Sahm dictates a letter to Manuchehr recalling his long service, above all his slaying of the dragon of the Kashaf River. Pleading old age, he hands his command to Zal and asks the Shah to judge Zal’s love kindly. Zal sets out for court with the letter.

A dragon once came from the Kashaf River: The Kashaf Rud flows past Mashhad through the valley of Tus, Ferdowsi’s home. The poet gives Sahm’s most famous monster a lair in his own countryside.

They called me Sahm of One Blow for that fight: Sām-e yak-zakhm, ‘Sahm of the single stroke’. Behind Sahm stands the Avestan hero Keresaspa (Garshasp) of the Sama family, who killed the horned dragon Srvara (see A5.9). Much of that older dragon-slayer’s legend passed to Sahm, and the family name Sama became the hero’s own.

A8.15Mehrab Storms before Sindokht

Hearing that Sahm is coming against Kabul, Mehrab threatens to kill Sindokht and Rudabeh to appease the Shah. Sindokht persuades him to let her go to Sahm herself, makes him swear to spare Rudabeh, and loads a vast caravan of gifts.

Know well that this dark night is pregnant now: Sindokht is using a proverb still in everyday Persian: shab ābestan ast, ‘the night is pregnant’, meaning no one knows what it will give birth to by morning. Mehrab’s reply, that this is no time for old sayings, is a nice touch of domestic realism.

Like Badakhshan’s bright jewel beneath the sun: Badakhshan, in the mountains of north-east Afghanistan, has been famous since antiquity for lapis lazuli and for the rose-red spinel once called the ‘balas ruby’. The word ‘balas’ comes, through Arabic, from the name Badakhshan.

A8.16Sindokht and Sahm Come to an Agreement

Disguised as a warrior-envoy, Sindokht brings Mehrab’s gifts to Sahm, who has them credited to Rudabeh. She pleads for Kabul’s innocent people, wins his oath of safety, and only then reveals who she is. Sahm accepts the match and sends her home with gifts and an escort.

Swear me an oath that stands beyond recall: Sindokht follows diplomatic protocol exactly. She comes as an envoy, offers gifts, and secures zanhar, a sworn safe-conduct, before she reveals her name. The crisis of the romance is resolved not on the battlefield but by the shrewdest negotiator in the story.

A8.17Zal Goes with Letter before Manuchehr

Zal arrives at court and is warmly received. Manuchehr reads Sahm’s letter and grants the wish, but first has his astrologers consult the stars. After three days they foretell that the marriage will bring a long-lived, matchless hero who will serve the kings of Iran.

They took the Indian zij and traced each sign: A zij is a set of astronomical tables for computing the positions of the planets. Indian astronomy was already known in Sasanian Iran, and in the eighth century an Indian work translated at Baghdad, the Sindhind, became a foundation of Islamic astronomy. ‘Indian’ tables were the last word in precision.

A8.18The Mobadan Question Zal

Manuchehr has his Mobadan test Zal with six riddles: twelve cypresses of thirty branches, two racing horses, thirty riders, a meadow and its reaper, two cypresses shared by a bird, and a mountain city abandoned for a thorny plain.

What are the twelve tall cypresses all dressed: The riddle contest is one of the oldest of story forms: Oedipus and the Sphinx, the Queen of Sheba testing Solomon, Odin and the giant in the Norse Vafthrudnismal, Yudhishthira and the lake spirit in the Mahabharata. Iran has its own: a Pahlavi text tells how the young Yosht-i Fryan answered a sorcerer’s riddles on pain of death.

No more, no less, by Persian count they stand: The Zoroastrian calendar had twelve months of exactly thirty days, each day named for a divine being. The five extra days needed to make up the year, the Gatha days, were added at the end. So the ‘Persian count’ matters: an Arab lunar month would not do.

A8.19Zal Answers the Mobadan

Zal solves each riddle: the months and their days, day and night, the nights of the lunar month, the two halves of the year with the sun between them, this passing world and the lasting one beyond, and Time the reaper, who spares no one.

From Aries onward till Libra draws near: The two cypresses are the two halves of the year. Between the spring equinox, when the sun enters Aries (A1.1), and the autumn equinox, when it enters Libra, days are longer than nights; after that the dark gains. The old Iranian year marked the two turning points with its great festivals, Nowruz in spring and Mehregan in autumn.

That reaper, Time, cuts all within his sight: English readers know the Grim Reaper; Persian readers know Time as the pitiless harvester. Some Sasanian thinkers exalted Time itself, Zurvan, as the first principle of all things. In the Shahnameh, Time and the turning sphere act as a single impersonal fate, the constant background to every reign.

A8.20Manuchehr Approves of Zal

Delighted, Manuchehr feasts the court. When Zal asks leave to go, the Shah keeps him for a display of arms: Zal shoots through an ancient tree, drives a javelin through three shields and plucks a rival from his saddle by the belt. He is loaded with gifts.

Perhaps your thoughts are fixed on one so fair: The Shah who ordered Kabul burned in A8.12 now teases Zal about his bride. Manuchehr’s change of heart is complete, and Ferdowsi marks it with a joke rather than a speech.

A8.21Manuchehr’s Answer to Sahm’s Letter

Manuchehr writes graciously to Sahm, granting his wish, and Zal sends word ahead. The news reaches Kabul, where Mehrab rejoices and gives Sindokht his treasury. She adorns the palace, dresses Rudabeh as a bride and decks the city for Zal’s coming.

In craftsmen’s style of Chin, both rich and fair: In the Shahnameh, Chin is China and the lands of Central Asia beyond Turan, a byword for fine workmanship. Chinese silks and lacquer came west along the Silk Road, and Persian legend made the prophet Mani a matchless painter who had learned his art in Chin.

They wet the dust with rosewater and wine: Rosewater, Persian golāb, was one of Iran’s great exports. The rose-distilling season around Kashan is still celebrated every spring. Sprinkling the road before an honored guest lays the dust and perfumes the air.

A8.22Zal Returns to Kabul, Sahm and Rudabeh

Zal returns to Sahm, who tells him of his pact with Sindokht. Father and son ride to Kabul, where Mehrab welcomes them. Zal and Rudabeh marry amid weeks of feasting. Afterwards Sahm gives Zal the rule of Sistan and marches against the Gorgasaran.

Then scattered gems before the chief they praised: Scattering coins, jewels or perfumes over an honored person, nesār, was a real court custom in Iran and survives in the showering of sweets and coins over brides and grooms at Iranian weddings.

They readied ammari and hodaj for the road: Traveling litters. The ‘ammāri is a canopied seat on an elephant or camel. The hodaj is the curtained camel-litter in which women traveled; it gave English the word ‘howdah’. The mahd is a litter or cradle, here a bridal carriage for the ‘moon’.